Carver of the Month

                                                        Bob Rohleder

I was born and raised in Shively , Ky. At that time nothing much more than a small farming community which was rapidly  changing into a surburban community. While very young, possibly, 12 years old, Bob loved to remove the nice clear boards from the sides of orange and apple crates and then whittle a full length of the board into a genuine pirates sword. These weapons were great until swinging at a tree limb or something else that wasn’t soft like. Then it was back to carving a new sword. Looking back, the real fun was carving the sword  and not the playing with it.  Growing up, Bob was a woodworker most of his life, and at one time was selling Shopsmith wood working equip. His carving talents did’nt  re-surface until about 1994 when He received in the mail a carving of a “Beautiful Bull Bluegill” from a neph’ew who lived in San Jose, Calif. It was un-believable to Bob that a   wood carving could look that good. The gift of that fish turned him on to carving again and he has been carving ever since almost daily. As a long time member of The Falls Cities Woodcarving Guild Bob is now enjoying the carving of cottonwood bark. The freedom of designing and carving bark removes almost ever making a Mistake.